Clark appointed chief coach by HI

Keeping in mind the Junior World Cup in India, Hockey India on Sunday announced the appointment of former South African Olympian Gregg Clark as chief coach of the junior men’s side. Clark will start his assignment from April 13, and will be assisted by Baljeet Saini, a former Olympian.

“Clark has the experience to make players tactically and mentally stronger. Under his guidance, India stand a bright chance of a podium finish in the global tournament,” HI said in a statement.

Clark was coach of the Ranchi Rhinos, who won the inaugural Hockey India League. He was also coach of the South Africa national team for almost seven years.

In recent times, to prepare the junior squad for the World Cup, players have been given the opportunity to play for the senior side too. The federation also appointed Roelant Oltmans as director, high performance, to oversee the training of the senior and junior teams.

Shooters flopNational champion Heena Sidhu ran out of steam in the final of the women’s 10m air pistol event at the ISSF World Cup in Changwon, South Korea, on Sunday.

She qualified for the final with an impressive second-place finish, but failed to replicate the form in the medal round, finishing last among the eight shooters. Heena shot 388 in the preliminary round, but could only manage 75.7 in the final.

China’s Jie Ren won the gold with a total score of 201.8. The silver went to Serbia’s Zorana Arunovic (199.0) and Kim Jangmi (177.8) of Korea bagged bronze.

Annu Raj Singh and Ruchita Vinerkar could not qualify for the finals.

In the women’s 50-metre rifle 3 position, Tejaswini Sawant, Lajja Gauswamy and Meena Kumari failed to make the cut as they finished 18th, 24th and 33rd respectively in the qualifying round. London silver medallist Vijay Kumar, Pemba Tamang and Harpreet Singh will compete in the qualification stage 2 of the men’s 25-metre rapid fire pistol event on Monday.